With the "arbs" out in force in Eircom, trading in the telecoms group dominated the Irish market, although there was also some sizeable trading in selected financial and industrial stocks.

Dealers expressed amazement at the size of the trading, even given the obvious presence of arbitrageurs. Certainly the 24 million Eircom shares traded in Dublin and the 66 million traded in London are by far the biggest ever daily volume in a single stock outside of rights issues and placings. Eircom closed on €1.30, with ABN Amro telling investors to sell now at these sort of levels rather than wait for a formal offer to emerge from the current process.

Bank of Ireland was the heaviest traded financial share, with 3.6 million shares dealing in Dublin. The shares, however, were unchanged on €11.30. Anglo Irish gained 12 cents to €4.60 while AIB eased 5 cents to €12.85. Among the industrials, Smurfit continued to trade in size. Almost 4.4 million shares dealt as the share drifted back 3 cents to €23.30. More than two million Green shares dealt as the share added 5 cents to €7.75. Eagle Star has disclosed that it has sold 775,000 Green shares to take its stake down to 6.7 million shares or 6.4 per cent of the total.

Ovoca Resources was 4 cents lower on €0.25 as Mercury Holdings bought a 5 per cent stake. On overseas markets, Baltimore stayed under heavy pressure, falling 23/4p to a new low of 57p sterling.